structures of a house rest on its foundations. Merodach wrought it out
of a hard resisting metal which shone brilliantly during the day in
the rays of the sun, and at night appeared only as a dark blue surface,
strewn irregularly with luminous stars. He left it quite solid in the
southern regions, but tunnelled it in the north, by contriving within
it a huge cavern which communicated with external space by means of two
doors placed at the east and the west.* The sun came forth each morning
by the first of these doors; he mounted to the zenith, following the
internal base of the cupola from east to south; then he slowly descended
again to the western door, and re-entered the tunnel in the firmament,
where he spent the night,** Merodach regulated the course of the whole
universe on the movements of the sun. He instituted the year and divided
it into twelve months. To each month he assigned three decans, each of
whom exercised his influence successively for a period of ten days; he
then placed the procession of the days under the authority of Nibiru,
in order that none of them should wander from his track and be lost. "He
lighted the moon that she might rule the night, and made her a star of
night that she might indicate the days:*** 'From month to month, without
ceasing, shape thy disk,**** and at the beginning of the month kindle
thyself in the evening, lighting up thy horns so as to make the heavens
distinguishable; on the seventh day, show to me thy disk; and on the
fifteenth, let thy two halves be full from month to month.'" He cleared
a path for the planets, and four of them he entrusted to four gods; the
fifth, our Jupiter, he reserved for himself, and appointed him to be
shepherd of this celestial flock; in order that all the gods might have
their image visible in the sky, he mapped out on the vault of heaven
groups of stars which he allotted to them, and which seemed to men like
representations of real or fabulous beings, fishes with the heads of
rams, lions, bulls, goats and scorpions.